Colleen Hoover Hasn’t Let Fame Change Her: ‘Life Honestly Feels Very Much the Same’ (Exclusive)

Colleen Hoover's books have been staples on bestseller lists, airport newsstand shelves and in beach bags for years, and her 2016 smash hit It Ends With Us will hit theaters Aug. 9 as a film she co-executive-produced with stars Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni (who also directed it).

But despite her stratospheric rise to fame, the author, 44, is still a self-professed introvert who’d rather wear press-on nails than sit through a salon appointment. She drives an unassuming black SUV so she can remain under the radar while going about her day-to-day business in her small Texas town (her previous car, a purple electric Porsche, made her feel too “self-conscious”), and she has a special place in her heart for the Texas chain Whataburger.

For more on Colleen Hoover, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on newsstands Friday, or subscribe here.

“Life honestly feels very much the same as when I was making $9 an hour struggling to get by,” Hoover told PEOPLE at the fifth and final Book Bonanza, her romance book festival. “I was just as happy then; it’s just different now.”

That’s probably because the mom of three brought a lot of her early supporters along for the ride. Her adult sons Beckham, Cale and Levi have spent a week volunteering at Book Bonanza every year. Her mother, 67, her husband of 24 years, Heath, 48, and her sisters Lin Reynolds, 47, and Murphy Rae, 34, all pitch in too.

“I feel I’m still surrounded by the same people. The same girls that I worked with before I became a writer still work with me,” Hoover says. “We all got along so well that I’m like, ‘Hey, everybody come with me.’”

She attributes her down-to-earth attitude in large part to the way she got into publishing. Instead of going the traditional route of finding an agent and then a publisher, Hoover started out writing for fun, penning the kinds of books she likes to read for her friends and family. She self-published her first book, Slammed, in 2012 as a Christmas gift for her mother, Vannoy Fite.

After it took off, Slammed and her subsequent two books were picked up by Atria Books, an imprint of Simon & Schuster. Her third novel, Hopeless, became the first self-published book to top the New York Times bestseller list in 2013, and by then, she had quit her job as a social worker to write full-time.

"Writing what I want to read has helped me get to where I am because I think there's a lot of people out there who also enjoy picking up a book and reading those quick emotional reads," she explains. "You don't want your brain to hurt too bad. You want your heart to hurt. It's an escape."

Now, she has legions of devoted fans who call themselves "CoHorts," many of whom have been with her since she was just another romance fan finding community online. And even though she calls herself a "homebody type," she loves hearing from her fans, even when they see her out and about around town.

"When they're coming up to you and they're like, 'Hey, I read your book. It meant so much to me,' I love it," she says. "How can you be upset when someone wants to tell you that they love what you love to do?"

As she looks forward to the movie coming out, she's a little nervous about how it'll be received, but she knows her support system will stick by her no matter what.

"I feel like the right thing that I did... is surround myself with the right people, and I think that that's just extremely important, especially when you have such a massive life change like this," she says. "Relationships change, but luckily for me, they're just so supportive and want happiness for me, and it makes all the difference in the world."